Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎) (1942–) is Japan's former prime minister (26 April 2001 – 26 September 2006), a right-wingpopulist[1] and a Japanese nationalist. He is considered to have been the politician who has turned elitist Japanese politics into populist and nationalist tendencies.

Koizumi is regarded as a politician who fundamentally changed the LDP. The LDP was actually a very elitist party, but its right-wing populist nature grew after Koizumi.

Considering that Japan itself is rampant in political and cultural conservatism, he may not have been a far-right politician.. but he turned the party's inclination toward nationalistic populism, which in turn resulted in a far-right nationalist politician Shinzō Abe becoming the current prime minister, who created the current political situation in Japan that dominated the LDP.